Non-native Species: EU Law

(asked on 18th February 2019) - View Source

Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps his Department has taken to establish a surveillance system of invasive alien species of Union concern to minimise or prevent the introduction of those species under Article 14 of EU Regulation No 1143/2014 on invasive alien species.


Answered by
Thérèse Coffey Portrait
Thérèse Coffey
This question was answered on 25th February 2019

The UK is in the process of completing its comprehensive pathway analysis. Rather than basing this simply on the unintentional pathways of introduction and spread of species listed as being of Union concern (the minimum required by the Regulation), the UK has undertaken an extensive assessment of introduction pathways of all established non-native species in Great Britain and their impacts. This will be used, in addition to data on species of Union concern and horizon scanning, to support prioritisation.

Boating and angling have been identified as priorities for Pathway Action Plans (PAPs) given the recent arrivals of several highly invasive aquatic species, including killer shrimp and quagga mussel, and are almost complete. In addition to this, a PAP has been completed for zoos and aquaria and the UK has a long running campaign to reduce the risk of horticultural escapes (although this is not part of a formal PAP). Further PAPs will be prioritised based on the results of the comprehensive analysis.

The Non-Native Species Information Portal (NNSIP) has been established to ensure a rapid flow of non-native species distribution data into a centralised repository to facilitate surveillance for new species as well as the spread of established species. The NNSIP is a partnership that relies on the extensive biological recording networks present in Great Britain as well as citizen recording. In addition, an alert mechanism has been established for urgent recording of priority species, which received around 8,000 alerts in 2018. Early detection is particularly critical to support the UK’s response to the Asian hornet, so a surveillance network of sentinel apiaries is being used to monitor for the arrival of this species.

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